cleanse, day 6

A day on which I allowed myself fish.

All along I'd said that I would permit fish in the cleanse. I suppose I could be more rigorous, but I'm giving up quite enough, and really, how on earth do vegetarians not tire of the beaniness of it all? I'd had some fish as part of my meal earlier in the week at a benefit dinner at Yoshi's anyway, so last night wasn't a step too far.

In fact, it was a light meal, and one to revisit with some tweaking. I marinated halibut with miso, and it was the addition of a scant amount of sesame oil to the marinade that accounted for most of the added fat to the meal beyond what the ingredients might have. Come time to cook the fish, I lined a steamer basket with some Napa cabbage leaves and placed the fish atop the leaves with some broccoli and sliced shitake mushrooms alongside. I thought that sauteing or roasting the mushrooms might make them too strong, hence the steaming.

While those steamed I was reducing balsamic vinegar. Here's the other thing I miss on this cleanse - sweetness. It's a tough thing to incorporate sometimes, especially if I don't want the other flavours of fruits or things that might lend food the sugars I seek. Reducing the vinegar to syrup, I smeared each plate with a streak, then plated the fish atop along the with the broccoli, the mushrooms, and some crispy onion bits. A simple meal.



If I do this again - I should - I think I'd do two things differently. First, I'd start the broccoli before the fish. It was still a little crunchy. Healthier that way, perhaps, but some greater tenderness would have been good. I also might have poached the mushrooms in a miso broth for evennness of cooking. The fish, though, flaked apart delightfully yet wasn't overcooked. A reasonably successful idea, and one to revisit for sure.